God Bless the Child
by Oldach's Dream
Summary: Preseries. While Sam’s at Stanford. In the aftermath of a hunt, Dean seeks comfort and finds only lies. Oneshot.


By: Oldach's Dream

Summary: Pre-series. While Sam's at Stanford. In the aftermath of a hunt, Dean seeks comfort and finds only lies. Oneshot.

Disclaimer: Will never be mine. Let's stop pretending.

A/N: I have a feeling I will never stop finding these things.

God Bless the Child

Dean Winchester shut the curtain behind him with shaking hands; he sat on the hard wooden bench and took a deep breath. Already the small confined area was beginning to reek of blood – blood, earth, death and failure - if scents could be that clear cut. He knew they couldn't, but wished to…well, he wished they could, because then perhaps he would have to spend less time talking, less words would be lost explaining what he had done.

The scent of blood told his life story, after all. Whiffs of freshly overturned dirt – brought up from six feet underground – explained in detail the job he'd had for years – decades, if one really wished to tally them up. And if death and failure had a smell, Dean was quite sure they had become part of his natural body odor years and years ago.

The screen on his right hand side was pulled back, effectively drawing him out and away from the thoughts that ran unchecked through his hazy mind.

Taking a deep breath, he ignored the quivering of his limbs and let the deep silence that rang out around them take control for a few lost seconds. Then he bowed his head and began to speak in unsteady tones to the vaguely outlined figure hiding behind the solid mass of detailed metal.

"Forgive me father…" he cleared his throat and swallowed thickly. "For I have sinned."

The Priest – and Dean was mostly certain that that was the correct term for the religious man he was conversing with – spoke after a few weighted moments.

"And how long has it been since your last confession, son?" The man had an old, gentle, yet unwaveringly solid, voice. Dean wished suddenly that he had a grandfather - knew personally a grandfather's tone - so he could make comparisons between it and this man's.

"I…" Dean cleared his throat and ran a hand over his face in an exhausted motion, one he had picked up from his father. "I actually…see, I've never been big on the religion thing. I mean, no offence or anything…my life…it's just been really complicated…ever since I was a kid, and Church, it's just never…"

"Calm yourself, son," the old man spoke soothing words that cut off immediately Dean's ramblings. "You don't have to be baptized to want to cleanse yourself of your immoral wrongdoings." The eldest Winchester brother sucked in a deep lungful of relieved air. "You do, however," the Priest continued almost at once, "Have to be a believer. Do you believe in God, son?"

Dean considered the question. "I don't know."

The old man spoke with a subtle – almost intangible – laughter present in his tone. "You doubt your belief in God," he repeated. "Yet when you are quite obviously in distress, you come to God's doorstep and ask his forgiveness."

The young man considered the words, thought surely that if they had been spoken by nearly anyone else, they would have sounded undeniably condescending.

"Tell me," the man went on, when Dean hadn't spoken for several long beats. "When was the last time you said a prayer?"

_Please God, if we get out of this alive, I'll never ask you for anything else again. I'll stop gambling, I'll make real money, I'll stop sleeping with women who mean nothing to me. I'll save a hundred innocent people, just please, please, let us get out of here alive. I need him. _

The words he'd repeated in his mind again and again just hours before echoed through his head now, haunting him. Too often, he knew, he turned to God in moments of desperation, when he felt he had everything to lose.

_I'm not gonna be able to make it if something happens to him. I need him. Please, I can't lose anyone else I love, I can't lose another person in this fucked up family. You here that? It's your fault our family's so screwed, you could have changed it! _

_So, please, please, just let him be okay. I'll do anything. I'll call Sammy, I'll forgive him for wanting to live his own life. I'll stop hunting, I'll be normal. Just please, let dad be okay. I'll do anything…_

"I pray a lot." Dean's choked words were a sudden realization. "In…with the job I have, I pray almost everyday. I get angry at God for giving me the life I have, and I…sometimes I think he owes me certain things."

"Everything our Lord does has a purpose," the aging man spoke calmly. "You can be angry at Him as much as you like. It changes nothing where His grand design is concerned. Everything happens for a reason."

Dean felt doubt swell up inside him, taking over the anger and betrayal that had been there so often lately. If everything that happens has a reason, as this religious man just so kindly informed him, then innocent people died every single day as part of some master plan.

Children left the land of the living, screaming out in terror, wanting only to cling to their mommy's, believing with their whole hearts that the adults in their lives could stop their destruction. Believing, occasionally, that the leather-clad man, who had just sauntered into their life claiming to know of unearthly things, could save them without question.

Children died with confused faces and cloudy eyes, because God willed it to be so? Dean couldn't accept this. It was too easy. It took the guilt and the pain away from him and placed it on another's shoulders. And while God certainly had shoulders strong enough to carry the weight of the world, Dean refused to believe it could be that simple.

Newly formed opinion in mind, he opened his mouth to speak his thoughts, but was promptly cut off.

"When was the last time," the Priest continued unwaveringly, and Dean wondered if the man had timed his next words, or if the shadows that surrounded them prevented him from witnessing his attempts at vocalization. "You said a prayer that wasn't tied directly to your job? When was the last time you simply gave thanks?"

"_Why do we pray, mommy?" A three-year-old Dean sat cross-legged on his bed with an inquisitive expression. _

_Mary smiled gently and ran a hand through the boy's soft hair tenderly. "We have to let God know that we appreciate everything he's done for us." She explained, "So if we ever need anything from him, he might answer our prayers."_

_This the young child understood. "Like how I prayed a long time that I'd get a little brother?" He confirmed. "And now you have a baby in your tummy? Did God do that for me?"_

_Mary laughed the laugh of an angel. A simple lighthearted laugh that her son would never forget. "Yes, Dean," she agreed. "God put a baby in my tummy just for you." She paused and considered it, still smiling. "Well, for you and me and daddy."_

"_And if I ask God, will he make sure I'm a really, really good big brother?" Dean spoke solemnly. "Because I wanna be a really, really good big brother."_

"_You will be, Dean," she pushed a lock of hair behind his ear, promising, "You will be."_

"I used…" A grown man, a hunter of all things evil, and Dean found himself on the verge of tears. It had been a long time sine he'd recalled a moment like that. Usually those memories stayed stored away, behind thick walls that had taken him years to construct. "I used to pray with my mom." He got out. "But after…after she died. I stopped."

"Why?"

"I didn't believe it anymore."

"No," the man told him, sad realization materializing in almost visible waves. "You didn't stop believing. You were angry. You thought God cheated you."

"He did." Dean seethed, suddenly furious. Furious that he had to think about things that should have been buried long ago. Things that should have never been lost in the first place. "He took it all away."

"Is that what you really believe?" The Priest's tone stayed the same, and the young hunter wasn't sure if it was adding to his rage, or keeping him steady.

"Yes." Dean's voice was low, bordering on dangerous, he saw only the memory of death as words toppled out, unchecked. "He took it away. He took my mom, and that changed everything. Don't you get it? It changed everything. It made dad hard and cold, and Sammy hates him, and he hates me too. He has to; I'm just like him. I'm just like dad. I drove him away. I drive everyone away."

"And you think that's God's fault?"

"He took it all away." Dean repeated. "He changed everything."

"And you don't think, perhaps, that's the way it was meant to be?" He asked gently, and before Dean could answer, "Has nothing good come out of your life?"

Dean didn't have to think about the answer, he didn't have to speak it aloud either, yet he did nonetheless. "Yeah," his voice cracked and in that instant, his anger was gone. "There's some good." He forced himself to recall the faces of the people he had saved - the families that still existed because of the Winchester's. "We do good for other people."

There were conflicting emotions in his voice now. Good done for others often overshadowed the needs and wants of his own family. Whether or not that's the way it was supposed to be - that's what Dean struggled with constantly.

The Priest too, seemed to detect the undercurrent of confusion, for he spoke solemnly the question that forced Dean to refocus. "Why are you here tonight, child? What evil have you inflicted upon the world?"

Dean swallowed, "You...remember that job, I mentioned?" He saw - or felt, he'd never be sure which - the elder man nod in affirmation. "Sometimes...sometimes people die. Because of me. Sometimes people die because of me. Someone died tonight, because of me."

"_Grab the woman, I'll get the kid!" John had shouted the order frantically. Dean didn't even bother nodding, just took off in the direction of the woman's bedroom._

_He made it there just in time to see the spirit fling out a transparent hand and send her flying across the room. Right out the third story window. _

"You believe this death was your fault?" The old man brought him out of his still much too vivid memories.

"Yeah," he whispered. "It was."

The silence that followed, Dean would look back on, and never actually be able to classify as a silence. The buzzing in his head was much too loud.

"I can't alleviate your guilt," The Priest said solemnly, and with that, Dean felt hope drain away. "I can only tell you, that if you look to God, trust in his methods...you will find forgiveness."

"What if that's not enough?"

"Then perhaps…" the Priest spoke slowly, purposely and a little sadly, "You came to the wrong place tonight, to seek comfort."

o0oo0o

Four hours later found Dean Winchester in a bar sipping his fourth draft beer. The buzzing in his head had dulled, his thoughts - while not gone - were considerably less overwhelming now that alcohol was overriding his blood stream.

The Priest might have been wrong about the existence of God and the overall workings of the world - it _was _his fault, and believing anything else would be a copout - but he had been right about something. Dean Winchester did not belong in a chapel tonight - he'd found no comfort there.

This bar was his church, this beer his God, that bartender his Priest - and tonight, that was all he was going to get.

FIN


End file.
